With the success of Jana Andolan II, the general public entertained high hopes that things would get much better soon. But nearly four months into power, the seven-party alliance (SPA) government is gradually losing public confidence that it is capable of fulfilling the popular mandate expressed through the recent movement, as well as its own public pledges. Besides the goal of a political resolution of the crisis through the constituent assembly elections, the government’s duty is also to discharge the day-to-day functions properly, including the maintenance of law and order. But the progress on these fronts has not been all that encouraging. Nor have the ministers been displaying a sense of collective responsibility. This is ceasefire period and the SPA and the Maoists are engaged in talks to institutionalise peace through an enduring political accord. But even now, violence continues, though of another kind and on a much smaller scale. Maoist extortions and stray cases of abduction and violence continue with virtual impunity.

At the same time, miscreants of mostly non-political character have been taking undue advantage of uncertainty and chaos by resorting to looting, vandalising, raping, killing and committing other crimes. But the government and the security apparatus under it seem to be largely helpless. Miscreants even infiltrated the public protests against the oil price hikes and seized the opportunity to loot and vandalise. The government withdrew the decision pending the submission of a report on the matter, but petro-dealers are now threatening to shut down the petrol pumps if their seven-point demand is not met, including security to petrol pumps, while the public seems to be against the high profit margin allowed to them. Over the issue of the price hike, the want of collective ministerial responsibility was exposed, with the supplies minister dumping the blame at the door of the finance minister, who refused to accept the charge but still supported the decision. The political parties and the parliament only reacted to the public mood.

The peace process seems to be moving by fits and starts, with the ministers and their boss making conflicting remarks — creating confusion. Things are being made worse by ministers speaking on anything under the sun, even on the highly sensitive issues of the peace negotiations — making a cacophony and leading to public doubts about the government’s intentions about peace and political settlement. Prime Minister Koirala has signed the 8-point and 5-point agreements with the Maoists, but despite the clear provisions of arms management and other issues like the interim constitution and dissolution of the parliament, he has been making statements in contrast to those provisions. This has rendered his bona fides as a respecter of the accords rather suspect. Koirala’s recent statement that the national crisis should be resolved by the Nepalis and the ‘international community’ together has also sown some doubts in the public mind whether the SPA government is not being overly swayed by extraneous forces. All this is not a healthy sign.